February 13, 2010

Mojave Valley Highway. It’s the last leg of the journey between Needles and Bullhead City, Arizona. The place is desolate: there’re more adult bookstores than houses, not a person in sight. If it weren’t for the Harleys parked outside a saloon, passerby’d probably think the place was a ghost town. We find a Wal-Mart.

I jump in a cart and my boyfriend pushes me around the place. He wants to buy me sneakers.

“Does this mean I have to wear socks?”

I hate socks. He finds me some socks. I will have nothing to do with this plan to attain “comfortable attire.” Nevertheless, I’m amazed they have shoes and socks and just about everything in one store — it’s so American. Everything you could need or want, standardized and shoved into this box-like establishment.

It’s incredible to imagine — fifty years ago, this place didn’t exist. Hell, fifty years ago Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, was still working at JC Penney.

I’ve decided that I’m a Wal-Mart: a dilettante specializing in cheapening genius and beauty to the point of democracy.

Andy Warhol was right when he talked about the wonder of consumer egalitarianism in this country. You can still watch TV and see a Coke and know that you can have a Coke just like the one Dubya is having, and the one Paris Hilton is having, and the one Bill Gates is having. All Cokes are the same and all Cokes are good, isn’t that what he said?

Yes — if we have any sort of a legacy, this is it.

Having procured the sneakers and socks — which I flatly refuse to wear — we hit the hills and find a look-out as we near Laughlin. The population there is less than 10,000, but it’s always buzzing with people: it’s the third most visited casino-destination in Nevada, after Vegas and Reno. From the look-out, we see Casino Drive’s lights reflected on the Colorado River like a little Las Vegas right at our fingertips.

I jump out into the heat to take a picture and have a smoke. My boyfriend comes out and before I can light up, he’s opened the side door of the car and bent me over the back seat.

Low-rise jeans give easy entry: you don’t really have to unbutton or unzip them to get them down. You just tug, whale tail and all, and you’re in.

It’s like we don’t even touch, we just fuck. I need his cock and he needs my cunt. We don’t even have time to moan before it’s over. I feel him tighten inside me after a few savage thrusts and I come. When I come, I send him over the edge. He pulls out–pop shot on my back.

He leans against the side of the car, I get out and, jeans still mid-thigh, light that cigarette.

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That Steam allows the objectification and sexualization of female characters in a variety of its games but refuses to accept a game about actually engaging with women in a more interactive fashion is astonishingly backward.

That the site doesn’t take measures to protect user content and has shown incompetence or negligence in regard to user privacy, all the while prohibiting victims from warning others about predatory behavior creates an environment where it is nearly impossible for members of the community to take care of themselves and one another. By enabling FetLife to continue espousing a code of silence, allowing the spinning self-created security issues as “attacks,” and not pointing out how disingenuous FetLife statements about safety are, we are allowing our community to become a breeding ground for exploitation.

Should people who benefit (parents, siblings, children, roommates!) from the earnings of “commercial sex acts” (any sexual conduct connected to the giving or receiving of something of value) be charged with human trafficking? Should someone who creates obscene material that is deemed “deviant” be charged as with human trafficking? Should someone who profits from obscene materials be charged with human trafficking? Should people transporting obscene materials be charged with human trafficking? Should a person who engages in sex with someone claiming to be above the age of consent or furnishing a fake ID to this effect be charged with human trafficking? What if I told you the sentences for that kind of conviction were eight, 14 or 20 years in prison, a fine not to exceed $500,000, and life as a registered sex offender?

If you are a woman, you might be given a chance to prove yourself in this community. Since there is no standard definition of what a “geek” is and it will vary from one judge to the next anyway, chances of failing are high (cake and grief counseling will be available after the conclusion of the test!). If you somehow manage to succeed, you’ll be tested again and again by anyone who encounters you until you manage to establish yourself like, say, Felicia Day. But even then, you’ll be questioned. As a woman, your whole existence within the geek community will be nothing but a series of tests — if you’re lucky. If you aren’t lucky, you’ll be harassed and threatened and those within the culture will tacitly agree that you deserve it.

Zak’s original field, it turns out, is economics, a far cry from the hearts and teddy bears we imagine when we consider his nickname. But after performing experiments on generosity, Zak stumbled on the importance of trust in interactions, which led him, rather inevitably, to research about oxytocin. Oxytocin, you might remember, is a hormone that has been linked previously to bonding — between mothers and children primarily, but also between partners. What Zak has done is take the research a step further, arguing in his recent book, The Moral Molecule, that oxytocin plays a role in determining whether we are good or evil.

Let’s talk about the strippers. Whether they like to be half-naked or not, whether they enjoy turning you on or not, there’s one thing they all have in common: they’re working. Whether you think that taking one’s clothes off for money is a great choice of career is really beside the point (is it a possibility for you to make $500 per hour at your job without a law degree? Just asking). These women are providing fantasy, yes, but that is their job. And as a patron of the establishment where they work, you need to treat them like you would anyone else who provides a service to you.

About

Sex and the 405 is what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.

Here you’ll find news about the latest research being conducted to figure out what drives desire, passion, and other sex habits; reviews of sex toys, porn and other sexy things; coverage of the latest sex-related news that have our mainstream media's panties up in a bunch; human interest pieces about sex and desire; interviews with people who love sex, or hate sex, or work in sex, or work to enable you to have better sex; opinion pieces that relate to sex and society; and the sex-related side of celebrity gossip. More...